An operation on an unprecedented scale. Several hundred paratroopers were dropped on Saturday in the Castres (Tarn) region, as part of a joint exercise simulating a major confrontation and mobilizing 7,000 soldiers, an AFP team said.
The Orion exercise, which will take place until March 11 and will cover 14 departments, simulates an intervention in a country (“Arnland”) destabilized by militias, bordering on a powerful state orchestrating these disorders (“Mercure”).
The commander of the 11th paratrooper brigade also highlights the “quite new” aspect of the large-scale military exercise that has just started.
All the components of the armies involved.
The airborne operation on Saturday, carried out with six A400M military transport aircraft, has been preceded in recent days by naval operations in the Mediterranean, where 30 French Navy buildings cross, including the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier and two amphibious helicopter carriers. (PHA).
The armies are also planning an amphibious landing on the Mediterranean coast during this training in real conditions, which has the particularity of involving all the components of the armies (land, sea, air, space, cybernetic) in all tangible and intangible fields. . The European partners (Germany, United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy, Spain) are associated with it, as well as the United States.
Strengthen the operational readiness of armies
The challenge is to harden the operational preparation of the French armies, which, after two decades of anti-jihadist struggle, must reconnect with the assumptions of a large-scale confrontation against an opponent on equal terms. A script worked on for three years, whose relevance has been confirmed by the fierce war in Ukraine.
In the spring, a second sequence of the Orion exercise foresees the simulation of a high-intensity air-ground confrontation against the “Mercurio” state, with the deployment of 12,000 soldiers in north-eastern France.
Source: BFM TV
